Blanche Cleans Up Read online

  In the middle of the night, Blanche woke and tiptoed first to Malik’s and then Taifa’s room. The urge to bundle them into her arms and guard them against the worst of life made her rock on her feet. But she stood longest looking down at Shaquita, willing her not to let her life go reeling off a cliff because she’d done the natural thing, the thing that would be expected of a girl her age if she’d grown up in a real third world country instead of a neighborhood that was treated like one. It occurred to her that Shaquita’s pregnancy meant she and Pookie had had unprotected sex, or at least had used a leaky condom. In either case, Shaquita needed to get tested for AIDS on top of everything else.

  Sleep had gone elsewhere when Blanche returned to bed. She had a hard time calling it back. It arrived with a dream of Shaquita with six kids, homeless, living in a broken-down cab, but laughingly happy. Taifa and Malik lived two cars over.

  SIX

  DAY FIVE—MONDAY

  Dreams chased Blanche from one side of the bed to the other until nearly dawn. In between dreams, she’d played the night sweats game: sweat and fling the blankets off, shiver and pull them back up again. She’d had her first night sweat six months ago. It had taken her a week or two to understand that they were the beginning of the end of her monthly investment in the tampon industry. Now she woke feeling as though she’d been jogging half the night. She leapt to her feet when she realized she’d slept through her alarm. She rushed in and out of the shower, covered her hair with a scarf instead of rebraiding it, praised and thanked the Ancestors while she dressed, but was still late for work.

  Yet the closer she got to the Brindle house, the slower she walked. The sooner she got there, the sooner she would have to try to prove that she and Miz Barker were right—that Ray-Ray’s death was no accident, and that her employer and his chief negro were responsible. But how? That was part of what slowed her steps: She didn’t have a plan. She should have been more honest with Miz Barker, should have told her there was no way to do anything more than guess about what happened to Ray-Ray. But no, she had to act like she was some kind of detective or psychic or something. She could already see the look of disappointment on Miz Barker’s face. Guilt prickled her like porcupine quills. She was walking so slowly now, she was hardly moving.

  There was one other thing that slowed her steps: She needed to be careful. Very careful. She most certainly didn’t want Brindle to realize she was on to him—not if the Ray-Ray solution was how he settled his differences with people. She pushed her double-minded self into the Brindles’ kitchen.

  “Well, if we ain’t that glad to see you, darling!” Wanda was sitting at the kitchen table changing her shoes for carpet slippers. “I was afraid our Carrie was goin’ to have to take over the cooking.” Wanda punctuated her statement with a wink.

  “Humph!” was all Carrie chose to say, but she whacked a grapefruit in half as though she meant to do it harm.

  Blanche wasn’t about to join Wanda in teasing a sister, especially one as sensitive as Carrie. “Thanks for doing the grapefruits and juice,” she told Carrie instead. She hung her sweater and bag in the closet, put on her apron, and went to the stove.

  “So, Miz Wanda, I thought I only had the pleasure on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today’s Monday.” Blanche washed her hands and took over laying out breakfast.

  Wanda pulled the vacuum from the utility closet. “Didn’t I mention last time I was here? Tomorrow’s me grandniece’s graduation. Wouldn’t miss that, would I? I’m not so much on the sittin’ and listenin’ to speeches part, but there’ll be lovely cream buns and other bits afterward. Wouldn’t miss that, would I, darlin’?” She pushed the vacuum into the front of the house.

  Blanche set about making sure that even though she’d been late to work, breakfast was on time. She hummed to herself as she moved around the kitchen, bopping to the rhythm of cooking—a dance she knew well enough to improvise on with ease. She moved lightly from stove to fridge, buttering pans, slicing and dicing tomatoes, crumbling feta. Her mind was free of everything but the moment—the sure movements of her hands, the slight, circular motion of her body as she beat the eggs, the certain knowledge of just the right mix and amount of artichoke hearts, feta, and tomatoes to fill but not overpower the frittata. She felt the deep and satisfying pleasure of knowing that she not only knew what she was doing, but was doing it to death.

  When she finished her breakfast number, Blanche went to the bathroom and undid her cornrows. She combed and brushed her soft, thick, graying hair, parted it down the middle, and gathered strands, sweet with coconut oil, for rebraiding. She hummed softly and rocked a little as her body remembered sitting between her mother’s legs having her hair plaited: the smell of her mother’s newly washed and starched dress, like fresh-baked pie crust; the weight of the can of Dixie Peach Pomade she held within her mother’s reach; the sound and vibration of her mother’s humming that traveled down her mother’s arms into young Blanche’s scalp, connecting them as totally as they’d been joined before Blanche was born. Gonna call Mama tonight, Blanche said to her mirror self.

  Carrie was waiting for her in the kitchen. “Need more coffee, Blanche. They sucking it up today.”

  Blanche sniffed the air. Each time Carrie or Wanda opened that door a wave of sour air rushed into the kitchen—not sour-smelling, but air that had been hanging around people in an evil mood: damp and mean and edgy. It surprised her. She’d expected Allister and Sadowski to be at least content, if not downright happy. By now Allister must know his Ray-Ray problem was permanently solved.

  Carrie picked up the coffee tray. The front doorbell rang. Carrie stepped forward, then back, trying to decide whether to take the coffee first or answer the door. The bell rang again.

  “You get the door; I’ll take the coffee,” Blanche said, removing the tray from Carrie’s hands.

  Brindle and Sadowski looked almost as bleak as they had the morning Brindle’s run for governor had had to share the front page with Saxe’s death. Felicia was doing all the talking:

  “…hasn’t been to work, and none of his friends have seen or heard from him.” Her voice didn’t get any louder, but it kept getting higher. Blanche imagined a spring in Felicia’s chest winding her tighter and tighter as she spoke.

  Allister shrugged. “Probably holed up in some hotel in Provincetown with…” He stopped talking when Blanche approached the table. He watched her without a word while she served the coffee. Blanche never looked directly at him, but she could feel his suspicion like a hungry hound sniffing at her ankles. No one spoke while she poured. So, of course, she did her door trick and listened from the hall.

  “Mrs. Brindle, I’m sure your son—” Sadowski began.

  Felicia turned on him. “Shut up, you weasel. I may allow you at my table, but I do not allow you to speak on family matters, at least not to me.”

  Blanche imagined Sadowski turning a vivid shade of red. Allister Brindle spoke up: “Felicia, I have far too much on my mind to worry about—”

  “Oh, that’s right!” Felicia said. “The missing photographs, or love letters, or autographed panties, or whatever. I thought you’d have taken care of that by now.”

  Do it, girl! Blanche mouthed. Worry about her son hadn’t taken a bit of edge off Felicia’s tongue.

  Carrie turned from the front door with an armful of flowers. She headed for the breakfast room door, where Blanche stood listening. Carrie rolled her eyes in disapproval.

  There was a thump and the clatter of dishes from the breakfast room, as if someone had slammed his fist down on the table.

  “The whereabouts of your son is of no interest to me,” Allister said in a slightly louder voice than usual. “There, I’ve said it. Are you happy? I’ve saved you the trouble of accusing me of not caring. I hope he stays lost permanently. The last thing I need is—”

  Blanche knocked on the door and quickly opened it, just in time to see the glass in Felicia’s hand and then the orange juice on Allister’s face. Shock loosened A
llister’s features so that his nose and lips seemed to flow down to his chin along with the juice. Felicia stared at him from narrowed eyes. Sadowski hurried to Brindle’s side, fluttering around him like some mammy in a 1940s plantation movie. No one noticed Carrie standing in the doorway with Blanche peering gleefully over her shoulder. These rich white folks sure knew how to rumble!

  Allister waved Sadowski off and dabbed at his face. He threw his napkin on the table, rose, and headed toward the door.

  “Get Samuelson,” he growled at Sadowski.

  Allister almost knocked Carrie over when he came storming out of the room. Blanche was already scooting back to the kitchen, chuckling over the look on Allister’s juice-spattered face and the way Sadowski had buzzed around him. But Felicia! She could get the Bitch on Wheels Award if she kept up the good work. Damn Ardell! Why couldn’t she call from that stupid boat she was on? I’m likely to burst with all this stuff before she gets home, Blanche complained to herself. She was somewhat cheered when the back door opened and Mick stepped inside.

  “Hey! I forgot you were coming today.”

  Mick hitched her glasses further up her nose. “But you’re glad to see me, right?”

  Today her black T-shirt said dykes do it better in big white letters inside a pink triangle.

  “Honey, you don’t know the half.”

  “You hear about Miz Inez’s son?” Mick asked before Blanche could tell her about the Brindles’ little run-in.

  “Did you know him?” Blanche asked.

  “Yeah. I can hardly believe it! I mean, we were the same age! Went to English High together!” She spoke as if these facts were supposed to prevent death. “It really takes me out!”

  “I just saw him the other day,” Blanche said. “I feel awful for Miz Inez, too. She goes on her vacation and…”

  “Yeah. That’s rough.” Mick looked at her watch. “God! I’m late. Gotta get moving.”

  “You got your work cut out for you today, girl,” Blanche told her.

  Mick turned back from the stairs. “Something happen?”

  Blanche filled her in on what she’d seen and heard at the breakfast table. “I swear Allister looked like somebody had goosed him with an icicle,” she said.

  “Be plenty knots in Felicia’s muscles this morning.” Mick chuckled. “Wonder what’s up with Marc?”

  “You know him, too?”

  “Not know him, know him. Him and Ray-Ray were tight.” She ran up the back stairs.

  Blanche stared after her for a moment or two in which she wondered exactly what “tight” meant.

  Carrie had brought the flowers to the kitchen and left them on the sink counter. Blanche hunted up a vase and filled it with weak bleach water and sugar and began snipping stems and arranging flowers. The doorbell rang again, and Carrie scurried to get it.

  Blanche had assumed that Brindle’s order to Sadowski to “get Samuelson” meant to get him on the phone, so she was surprised when Carrie came back to say she’d just shown Samuelson into the library.

  And don’t I need to take these flowers into the living room and do a quick house inspection, especially around that library door? Blanche asked herself.

  Sadowski barged into the kitchen like the place was being raided. “The boss wants to see you. Now.”

  Blanche gave him her I-know-you-ain’t-talking-to-me look and turned to the sink. Carrie managed to shrink to the size and substance of a dust bunny. Blanche picked up the cut flower stems and dropped them into the disposal one by one. She wiped the counter, rinsed the dishcloth, and began slowly folding it, carefully lining up the corners and smoothing each fold.

  “I said…”

  Blanche looked over her shoulder at Sadowski: “Just ’cause you stop pissing in midstream when your lord and master calls don’t mean I’m going to rupture my lungs running down the hall.”

  “Now look here…”

  Blanche sucked her teeth and turned her head. She finished folding the dishcloth and hung it on its hanger. She straightened her dress, retied her apron, and smoothed her hair.

  “Out, out!” She made shooing motions at Sadowski and grinned behind his back as he turned on his heel and huffed out of the kitchen. She followed him into the hall, mimicking his loopy white-boy walk.

  Rivulets of hard rain striped the library windows, silver on darkest gray. Brindle’s face seemed to float just outside the puddle of yellow light from the lamp on his desk. His folded, spotlighted hands made Blanche think of animal traps covered with snow. Samuelson was standing in the corner where the bookshelves met. His arms were crossed, his head tucked in just like the TV magician before he disappeared into a cloud of white smoke. She made sure Samuelson saw her seeing him. Sadowski was now behind her, guarding the closed door.

  Allister stared at her as though he had some hope of reading her mind.

  “Do you have it?” Allister’s words leaped across the desk at her like well-aimed knives.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t play games with me! I want it back, goddammit, and I’m willing to pay! Do you have it?”

  He needs a tic, a hand-washing routine or something, Blanche thought, something like a valve on a pressure cooker, to ease some of the strain making him look like the top of his head’s about to blow off.

  “Have what, sir?”

  “Don’t lie to me! You let him in and you…”

  Blanche put her hand on her hip and opened her mouth to tell Allister what he could do with his accusations and his job.

  “I asked you a question!” he shouted at her before she could say anything.

  She gave Allister’s heaving chest and panicky eyes the kind of once-over that said she wasn’t looking at much while she decided whether to do her Hurt Faithful Retainer routine or to go for Outraged Dignity. She pulled herself up an extra inch and took a deep breath. She considered folding her hands in front of her belly and decided that was going too far. She lifted her chin.

  “There ain’t a man living that I got to lie to, including you,” she said—without pointing out the difference between having to lie and choosing to. “And I’m through being called a liar.”

  She reached behind her and began untying her apron as she turned and walked toward the door, contemplating punching Sadowski in his gut if he didn’t get out of her way. He hurried around her toward the desk. She heard him whisper something to Allister.

  “Don’t go off in a huff,” Allister said as she reached for the doorknob. “No one’s accusing you of anything.”

  Blanche looked over her shoulder at him, but she didn’t turn around, didn’t walk back to the desk.

  “Will that be all, sir?” She didn’t wait for Brindle to answer. She was tempted to let the door slam or at least close with a definite thud, but she couldn’t afford that. She stood with her ear pressed to the almost-closed door.

  No one spoke for a couple of seconds. Then: “Insolent bitch! She’s lying. He might have used the key to get in, but she’s in on it. She put his note with the mail, and if she doesn’t have the tape, she knows where it is. I’m sure of it,” Brindle said.

  Sadowski agreed. “But better to have her here, sir, so we can—”

  Samuelson interrupted: “But why would Ray-Ray give her the tape? She’s not—”

  “I don’t care why, Maurice.” Brindle said Samuelson’s first name as though it tasted bad on his tongue. “I just want that tape found, Maurice, and I want it found now. If you hadn’t fucked up and ki—”

  “Boss…” Sadowski sounded like a parent warning a child against saying a bad word. Brindle didn’t finish his sentence.

  “How many times do I have to tell you I—” Samuelson began.

  “I don’t give a shit about how you fucked up or why! Just get me that goddamned tape!” Allister shouted.

  Blanche went to the kitchen wishing, once again, that she’d torn that damn note up and flushed it down the toilet. Ray-Ray should have just put Brindle’s business in the street without selli
ng wolf tickets. It was amazing how simpleminded some black men could be about white folks. What happened to all that mother wit that had helped them survive more than three hundred years in a cold, cruel country? What had Ray-Ray expected Brindle to do? Beg him to please not tell anybody? Offer him the guest room? Apologize for whatever it was she was sure Brindle had done to make Ray-Ray hate him enough to want to ruin Brindle’s run for governor?

  And what had Brindle done about it? The question made her stomach rumble. Maurice Samuelson is what he did about it. Why else would Brindle have him in the room? Listening, watching. A scorpion waiting to strike. Like Ray-Ray was struck. But why kill Ray-Ray without getting the tape? Brindle’s got to be hot over that. That’s what he meant when he said Samuelson had fucked it up—he didn’t get the tape. Maybe Samuelson made Ray-Ray tell him where it was, but it wasn’t there. Maybe he gave Samuelson a phony tape. And what was on the damned thing anyway? Now Ray-Ray was dead, the videotape was out there somewhere, and Brindle thought she had it. She wished Samuelson had let Sadowski finish his sentence about why it was a good idea to have her in the house. Shit! She wanted to find out what happened to Ray-Ray, but she didn’t want to have a so-called accident of her own in the process. She jumped when the intercom buzzed.

  “Such a shame about Ray-Ray,” Felicia said when Blanche went up to her room. “Inez called last night. She is so thoughtful, even at a time like this. Of course, I told her to take all the time she needed, that you were doing just fine.”

  “Did you know Ray-Ray, ma’am?” Blanche asked, even though she already knew the answer. She wanted Felicia’s version of what Ray-Ray had been to the family.